In the event of fire, sleeping occupants of beds have a high exposure to danger from burns and smoke inhalation. Careless use of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes and other causes such as faulty wiring have resulted in private dwelling, apartment, hotel and ship fires with tragic physical injuries, loss of life and property, and increased costs of insurance.
One method which has been developed to reduce the danger from fires involving bedding materials is to treat materials with fire retardants. However, this method produces only partial safety improvements since other non-treated materials such as clothing and newspapers are often present and repeated washing of a chemically treated bedding material will reduce its effectiveness by loss of fire-retardant chemicals. Furthermore, fire-retardant chemicals may cause skin irritations in some individuals.
A second method developed for reducing the danger from fire to sleeping occupants of beds is the use of non-flammable materials for bedding. For example, fire resistant mattress covers have been made from fiber-glass. Non-flammable materials are generally inorganic, relatively high in cost, and difficult to join. Also, asbestos, a commonly known non-flammable material, is believed to be cancer producing.
A third method for reducing the danger from bedding fires is the use of specially constructed mattresses having internally disposed elements such as liquid filled cells or non-flammable padding. However, specially constructed mattresses are relatively high in cost, offer only limited protection and result in economic loss when an existing mattress must be discarded. In the event of fire, a mattress having non-flammable internal elements would not act to quickly extinguish the fire in other existing non-flammable materials.
Although the foregoing methods to some measure tend to reduce the hazards of fire, none of them have found widespread use. Therefore, a device is clearly needed which is low in cost, effective for reducing hazards of bedding fires and adaptable to currently used types of bedding.